Merry Christmas    maybe
by Ana Silvertongue
Summary: A somewhat short Xmas vignette in which gifts are exchanged, secrets revealed and Severus asks What fresh hell is this? inspired by a friend's art. only character i own is Ana.


He finally saw her.

"Lily! Lily! Wait up!" he panted running to catch up with her as she was leaving the Great Hall.

"I wanted to give you your gift before you left." He smiled.

"Oh! I've got yours upstairs. I'll meet you in the library in 10 minutes." She smiled, lightening his heart. They'd been friends for years, ever since he saw her on the playground slowly drifting down from the swings. He was the one that told her that it was okay when her sister started screaming that it wasn't fair she could do that and that she was a freak.

He ran to the library, his lanky legs covering the distance as if it were nothing. There he waited in the deserted study room. Her small gift rested on a cushion in front of the gigantic fireplace. Nervous, he paced, taking fewer steps than she would as he was a good eight inches taller. His palms were sweaty and he kept wiping his hands on his pants. He could hear the soft click-click of the librarian's shoes as she paced through the deserted stacks.

"Everything all right Mr Snape?" Mrs Pince asked pointedly.

"Ju-just fine, Mrs. Pince." He stammered. "Just waiting for Lily so I can give her her Christmas present in a neutral place." His heart began to pound as she walked away. Once she was safely out of earshot, he let out a long breath, to ease the nervous butterflies he felt in his stomach. He was finally going to do it. Ask out Lily Evans.

When she walked in he caught his breath. That always seemed to happen to him when she was near him. He swallowed, the butterflies fluttering up towards his throat.

She was carrying a book sized package that looked to be quickly wrapped.

"Here, I saw this over the summer and thought of you immediately." She said handing him the parcel. "I had to wrap it before I brought it down. I hadn't planned on giving it to you until Christmas day."

He tore into the paper surrounding the book, for a book it was.

"Wow. _Ars Arcanaeum Antimortus_. I've been looking for this. Where did you find it?"

"Oh, my parents took us to Italy for the summer, and I found it in a small bookshop outside Vatican City. Remember? I wrote you about the store I found on the Street of Five Moons. I thought you'd like it."

"Wow. Thank you. Uhm. Yours is over here." He pointed towards the fireplace.

She sat down and he gave her the box.

"Oh, it's a jewelry box." She opened it. "Oh Severus, it's beautiful!" She stared at the locket resting in the little blue box. He leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. They were sitting under a sprig of mistletoe, after all. She was blushing as was he while he hid behind his lank hair and gazed at her under his brows.

"I . . . I wanted to ask you." He let out a deep breath. "I _am_ asking you. Would you go out with me?" He smiled weakly, but with hope.

"OH, Sev. Oh no." She closed her eyes and bit her lip. "I'm sorry, but James . . . well, James and I are . Um. Well, we're kind of seeing each other. Outside of classes, I mean." She bit her lip again, chewing on it this time. There was an awkward silence. CRAP!SHIT!FUCK!DAMN!BOLLOCKS!BLOODY HELL WHAT AM I DOING HERE?! thought Severus. Oh god. What in the hell did I just do to this friendship? thought Lily. The silence dragged on.

"Uhm. Th-thank you, for the locket. It's really lovely. Would you put it on me?" She asked hoping to salvage the situation.

"Sure." He replied, wanting nothing more than to beat the life essence out of James Potter. Not just pound, tie upside down sans-trousers to the whomping willow and take a beater's bat from the quidditch locker room, and just for good measure use a few curses to up the agony factor.

He sat there staring into the back of her red-gold hair for a long moment as his fingers fumbled with the clasp, his nose inches from her neck. The sound of a throat clearing made them both jump.

"I am very tolerant of the behavior that goes on in my library when classes are not in session. However, Mr. Snape and Miss Evans, and I am sure you are well aware of this, I do not allow necking, or snogging, or whatever you young people call it these days. I suggest you find somewhere else to conduct your sordid affairs in future." The somewhat dry, crusty librarian sniffed.

Mortified they looked at each other and walked out the door in silence. Once outside the library doors, she turned to him.

"Severus. I really am sorry. I . . . I just didn't know how to tell you, exactly." She leaned up and kissed him quickly on the lips. Just a breath and a hint of a touch really. "Have a nice Christmas. What's left of it anyway. I'll see you around the castle." She turned and walked down the hallway away from him. She looked over her shoulder at the bottom of the first set of steps. He was still standing there, dumbstruck, staring at nothing in particular. She walked down the stairs and out of his sight.

Shuddering into alertness when she was gone, he shuffled a few steps forward. Gaining momentum he took the steps downward two at a time. With each step he uttered a quiet "fuck . . . (step) fuck" down the three flights of stairs and along the passage to the Slytherin common room. By the time he reached the door he had uttered the oath exactly 372 times. He stopped and took a deep breath, brushed the hair out of his face and said the password.

"Thane of Cawdor!" he snarled into the darkness. The door creaked open and there was a slight green light illuminating the last few steps into the small corridor leading to the common room. He lowered his head and stepped down. He crossed the room in as few strides as possible not meeting anyone's gaze. Groups of people, mostly the other seventh years, minus a few, looked at him as he walked past. He started up the steps to the landing where the dormitories split off between the two sexes. On the landing there sat a dark haired girl quietly reading a book in the subterranean windowsill. She looked up at him when he got close. Seeing the murderous look on his face, she stood up and braved the foul mood she knew he must be in.

"Severus, what. Oh no. You asked her didn't you?" she closed her eyes not wanting to be hit full in the face by his wrath.

"What? You knew?! How could you let me embarrass myself like that Ana?" he spat at her then turned towards the boys' hallway and his room.

"Wait! You really don't want to go in there right now!" she grabbed his arm.

"Why not? My room is my room, I don't care about the other asses who share it."

"Well, care or not, I don't think you want to see little Miss Bella in there en dishabille with both her boyfriend and his twin brother on leashes. And I mean the short kind."

He froze, dead in his tracks.

"Oh. God. Ew. I suppose that's why everyone else from the boys side from fifth year on up is in the common room." He said and shuddered.

"Guessed it in one. I could hear the three of them all the way on the other side of the barrier wall in my room. And of course, nothing makes better background noise for studying than someone else's loud, raucous sex."

"Oh lord. How long have they been at it?" he asked, both bemused and disgusted at the same time. She looked at her watch.

"Oh, I'd say almost an hour now. Why?"

"I'd give them another two before the rest of us can actually go anywhere near there." He shuddered again remembering the last time his room had been torn apart by the lusty threesome.

"Anyway, I've been waiting for you to get back. I wondered what took you so long since you were finishing up eating when I left the Great Hall. Let's go someplace quieter than this. You don't need to be around a lot of people right now." She said gently tucking her hand into the crook of his arm and guiding him back down the stairs. She walked him past the other house occupants who nodded and shrugged in sympathy, thinking that he had discovered why the upper regions of the dormitory were deserted. Eventually they reached the observatory at the top of the Astronomy tower. It was deserted, for the moment, and they could sit against the glass walls, frosted over with the Christmas snow, and talk in peace.

She sat down and he sat next to her, as was their habit on nights the tower was deserted. It was a known make-out spot in the castle and was usually watched by Mrs Norris or one of the ghosts who would alert Filtch that there was more than studying the stars going on up there.

"Okay, now, tell me what the hell happened. I mean, I know what happened, sort of, just from the way you were acting. So, what did you say?" He sighed, stretching out his long legs and picking at a fingernail.

"I gave her the locket, and God help me, I kissed her on the cheek. Then, idiot that I am, I asked her out." he sighed and leaned his head back against the glass.

"Then?"

"Then she said no, that she was sorry but she was seeing James _Fucking_ Potter."

"And that's it?"

"NO. Then Madame Pince decides to come over and embarrass the hell out of both of us by accusing us of shagging each other right there in the library study room."

"So what did you tell her?"

"Nothing we just kind of looked at each other and left. Oh yeah, then she kissed me and wished me a happy Christmas."

"Oh my. Sev, I'm so sorry things didn't turn out like you wanted." She moved to pat his arm in comfort.

There came a peal of laughter on the stair leading to the observatory and Lily's clear voice rang out "Stop it James, I don't want to get caught making out on the stairs!" Her head cleared the hatch first and she saw Severus and Ana sitting there, staring at her and she blushed.

"Not here, it's already taken. Stop it James, not here." She snapped on the way back down through the hatch.

"Oh. My. God. Severus, please tell me that did not just happen." He sat there staring at the hatch after she closed it. "Severus." She snapped her fingers and he looked up at her pathetically.

"What fresh hell is this, Ana?" He asked, sounding on the verge of exhaustion.

"Oh." She closed her eyes. "I don't know Sev, I don't know." She kneeled in front of him. "Severus, was that your first kiss earlier?" She looked him straight in the eye. He closed both of his and nodded.

She sat down next to him, facing him. He leaned forward and put his forehead on her shoulder. She could feel him shaking as she put her arms around his shoulders. She bowed her head over his and held him feeling her own melancholy tears flow down her face to join his.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have told you she was seeing him. I just thought it was her place to tell you. It shouldn't have been like that. God, I didn't want to be the one to hurt you." She whispered into his hair. He nodded. "For what it's worth, I'm jealous though. She has no idea how much she fucked up your first kiss. I'm sorry for that too, and jealous that she's the one with that distinction. Being your first kiss, I mean." She leaned her cheek against his hair. He coughed and lifted his head a bit.

"Really?" he asked groggily.

"Oh Sev, I've had a crush on you for years now. I thought you knew." She said, her chin and voice trembling. Her shoulders started trembling to join the rest of her upper body's rythms. He sat up a bit and pulled her forwards, so she was leaned against his chest.

"Gods Ana, how did I not see it? You've doted on me, just like I was doting on her. Dear God, how could I be so dense. And you're the one I always vented to. I'm so sorry I never noticed, God, I was jus so wrapped up in my own little drama to see what it was doing to anyone else." He rubbed her shoulder with his hand. "Ana, I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you like I'd been hurting."


End file.
